


Idle

by sinnabee



Category: Mystic Messenger, Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Like, Second Person, a teeny tiny bit, if any - Freeform, its a little odd, kinda??, like hopefully not what you're expecting, only vague spoilers, reset theory, the reader is actually a different entity entirely..., tried to keep it pretty spoiler free, you refers to mc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 19:10:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8459617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinnabee/pseuds/sinnabee
Summary: It's in the idle moments, the times where it's just you and him alone in that apartment, that he gets the closest to feeling like he's going to fall apart.Dead eyes and a blank face and the lights are on but nobody's home. The same thing over and over but not - because before you used to be filled with life, and now you just act out your role.He's tired of the game.





	

**Author's Note:**

> h e L p I can't stop playing this stupid game

He hated this the most.

The times when everyone left the chat, and that brief burst of normality was lost.

He could handle it in the early days, before he knew for sure which path had been chosen. He simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief and felt a pang of loss when it wasn't his.

But this time, right now, was the worst. There was a script to follow, and he may have been good at putting on masks, but this one was wearing thin.

The idle moments.

The times when it was just the two of you, back in that damn apartment.

He didn't know when it started. Definitely after he had discovered the resets, after he had been studying them for a while. You just began to...drift.

It used to be for a few seconds. Maybe you were just zoning out. But then it kept happening. Short instances or episodes where you seemed more like a robot than a person, faceless, emotionless… pre-programmed.

Before this, he knew, or at least suspected, that you were aware of the...loops. By the time the drifting started, he had gathered the courage to confront you. After that you were a team. You tried to fix it together.

It was always hard to remember at first, but you had trained yourselves to recognize the signs. The worst was when you took a long route. Whenever you chose Yoosung, it was four years of happiness and waiting before one day when you woke up and it started all over again.

It seemed like you had more trouble remembering than he did. You only ever seemed to recall after you had chosen.

Initially, before you started working together, he had been angry. He had come to the only conclusion he could - that for some reason, somehow, you were the one doing this. That you were never satisfied with what you got, so you went again.

That wasn't the case.

Someone else was pulling the strings, everyone's strings - not just yours and his, but the entire RFA’s, the intelligence agency’s, Mint Eye - all being guided by something else.

But most of all it was focused on you.

Or...it _was_.

Recently, you hadn't been yourself. You drifted off more and more, or just seemed to shut down completely. The lights were on, everything was running properly - but no one was home.

At first, it terrified him.

Now, it just made him mad.

Because he finally figured it out.

He looked through your phone this time, desperate for clues. Not about the hacker - no, thanks to the resets, he knew more about that than he probably should’ve, and it hurt his soul just to think about it - but through your chat logs. His brain noticed something, and it was screaming at him to find it. For some reason, he knew it would be here. He had to find it.

He did.

Previously, you had always responded to he and the members in your wonderful, kind, unique way. But it wasn't the same every time. Sometimes you’d spend hours talking to Yoosung about his games, or enthusing over cats with Jumin. You were always understanding and sympathetic for Jaehee, and cheerful and friendly with Zen. And you always helped him out with his pranks, and always, always understood him in a way he didn't think anyone else could.

But you didn't quote yourself verbatim. You didn't have minimal participation in conversations, and still inexplicably manage to have a huge impact on every member. You were human, and because of that you never tread the exact same path twice. Neither did the RFA members.

Or at least, you didn't, until now. Now you were like a Zombie. And these times you had in the apartment together were the worst, the days he had come to dread.

You only became animated when a chat opened up, or you had a phone call to make or receive. It should have been reassuring, to see you finally come out of your trance, but if he could see you when it happened, watch as something breathed the life back into you, it was just unsettling. The moment he hung up, you were still and motionless, like a pretty porcelain doll. Nothing he tried could ever get a reaction from you when you were stuck like that. He was lucky if he got 20 minutes of normal anymore.

There was a schedule that you followed rigorously. Phone calls to specific members were made at precise times of the day. You entered the chatroom the moment someone else did, conversed robotically, and then went back to being a statue again. It was unnerving and infuriating and it made him feel so completely and utterly helpless...

But now...looking at your phone...he thought that he might understand why.

You had logs of all of your previous chats. He could play them again in real time. But whenever it got to the point that you jumped in with a comment, or answer...he was given a box, with an answer tailored specifically to one member or another. The answer you had chosen earlier that day.

Pre-programmed.

Half of him couldn't believe it, and the other half of him couldn't believe he hadn't figured it out yet.

Pick the right answer, get enough points, receive your new lover as a prize for winning the game.

Someone was playing with you...like you were as two dimensional as a picture on a screen. A nameless character in a video game, that you played again and again and _again_ and _again_.

Suddenly the fact that the two of you had decided to call the timelines, loops, whatever they were “resets” made everything so much more infuriating.

Whoever was playing with you seemed like they were getting bored. They were getting lazy.

And it was turning you into...this. The thoughtful, kind, amazing woman that had been trapped in this repeated hell was deteriorating, becoming what the _Player_ wanted. An easily identified with person-shaped robot with no personality and the perfect responses built-in. Minimal chances of fucking it up.

They didn't care anymore. Maybe...maybe at first, they had been invested. But as interest waned...so did the effort into making things different, or “realistic…”

He couldn't be sure of the specifics. He honestly still wasn’t any closer to truly understanding what was going on. Just a gut feeling.

It would have to be enough.

He connected your phone to his laptop and did some quick work. Tracing the IP led back to Rika’s apartment, which he knew already. Useless. But digging a little further, investigating the altered coding of what used to be his RFA messenger…

Bingo.

It took him almost all night, and he ignored several of his “cues” from you to join chats, answer calls, or participate in general. Not when he was so close to getting you out of this. To finally getting that happy ending.

He finished around 7 a.m. the next morning.

Now he just had to wait.

_Three days later._

At the end of the Eleven days, his program went into effect. It traced the origin of the altered coding in the messenger to a third party that otherwise he couldn't access, and completely and utterly wiped everything involving the RFA, the code, and the “game” from whatever operating system or systems it was connected to. Then it left a message.

 **_ERROR 707:  
_** You threatened my happiness, her happiness, and took away our future.  
I’m not going to let it happen again.

It was all worth it, because finally, _finally_ , you woke up.

“Saeyoung…?”

“Don’t worry. We won’t ever have to reset again. I made sure of it.”

_~Final Ending~_

**Author's Note:**

> WELP there it is, my first written contribution to this rapidly growing fandom. I'm afraid the whole thing may be a bit confusing, so if you want anything clarified, please, ask me about it in the comments! :D
> 
> God, I love 707 so much


End file.
